Long before everyone had color televisions, video games and personal music players, we amused ourselves with traditional toys. Well, maybe they weren’t all traditional, but they were fun! Even with all our progress, many games and toys from my childhood are still popular today. But there are a few from Christmases past that have gone away, some for safety reasons.

1. The Sonic Blaster. This was probably my most favorite unsafe toy of all time. There was a pump handle that you were instructed to pump “no more than 8 times”, which was of course an invitation to pump until you couldn’t anymore. When you pulled the trigger, it let out all that compressed air which echoed through its long chamber in the coolest “BOOM” you ever heard. We once set a lit candle at the bottom of the basement stairs, and then blew it out with the blaster. We had ours taken away when my parents found the burnt paper plates we were lighting and blowing out like we were skeet shooting. Mattel took it off the market due to the damage it caused ear drums. Not the sound, but having it blown at the side of your head.
2. Mr. Kelly’s Car Wash.  Nothing unsafe, just boring. We started looking for inventive uses that the toy was not designed for, which is never a good thing. Little plastic cars go through a motorized tunnel where they get squirted with water and dried with little sponges. Yipee. Perhaps its purpose was to motivate us to go to college, or to be Mr. Kelly and not one of his workers.
3. Thing Maker. This was like a Fry Daddy, only you filled it with plastic pellets. When they melted, you injected the mixture into molds to make your own “Things”. There were theme sets with bugs, army men, and other creatures. Anyone who had one got a burn mark or two.
4. Photo-Electric football. You had a set of papers that had plays drawn on them. Your opponent had defensive plays. You lay them both upside down on top of each other on a lite box, and slowly pull a slide out so the light would shine through the paper. If the Offensive play moved down field without touching a player’s dot on the defensive sheet, touchdown baby! Of course if the bulb burned out and you replaced it with one that was too much wattage, you burned the plastic screen that the plays are set on, and maybe even caught it on fire. Some halftime show.
5. Jarts. Need I say more?

Any toys you remember from your past that you probably wouldn’t let your kids get near?

May your holidays and gift-giving be safe, memorable, and trouble free.

Thanks, and let’s be careful out there.

Anna at abdpbt is responsible for the effort to Fight Listless Mondays. Find other list links on her blog. Her lists and the others linked there always give you something to think about, and may even make you smile!

Whether at work during a safety investigation or sitting in the principal’s office explaining why your paper reads like the Wikipedia entry on the same subject (maybe is ’cause I wrote that, too), here are a few of the FGA’s for why someone took a shortcut.

1. I know the procedure says to shut the machine down, but by clearing the jam on the fly we saved 4 minutes of production.
2. Jimmie told me to.
3. I was afraid that if I went through the major intersection, a policeman might see me holding my beer.
4. I didn’t think anyone really read the middle pages of the term paper.
5. Because if I didn’t, I wouldn’t have won.
6. I was being creative.
7. Because the way you showed me to do that takes too long.
8. Because if we get ahead on our production, we can stay in the break room from 3 to 5 playing cards.

Don’t be in a hurry to the point you look for short cuts. It’s OK to fix processes and make them easier. In fact, every business values that. But short cuts that compromise your safety or the safety and integrity of others are not worth it.

Is there a short cut that is worth taking? Tell me about one that is a good short cut.

Thanks, and let’s be careful out there.

Anna at abdpbt is responsible for the effort to Fight Listless Mondays. Find other list links on her blog. Her lists and the others linked there always give you something to think about, and may even make you smile!

The post title comes from the weapons policy for the event – and weapons were everywhere. Sort of scary for a first timer like me, but surprisingly, you get used to the craziness.

Since many of those attending identify themselves with their favorite characters, today’s list involves a count of what I saw there.

• 27 Indiana Joneses
• 2 Marios
• 1 cast of Futurama
• 5 Legend of Zelda Links
• 3 Wookies – we assume they were Chewbacca
• 14 Darth Vaders
• 2 Mad Hatters
• 1 Alice in Wonderland
• 1 Orc (Warhammer Game)
• 100 (or more) Storm Troopers
• 1 Wild Thing (see pic above)
• Various characters from Teen Fortress (Video Game)
• 1 Thomas the Train
• 2 Bob the Builders – no, wait, my son tells me that is the engineer from Teen Fortress, and yeah, he does look like Bob the Builder.
• 2 Princess Leias in Bikini (1 that shouldn’t have, really)
• 4 Princess Leias with Bun Hair and white robe
• 6 Ghostbusters
• 5 Creepy Masked Guy from “V is for Vendetta”
• Hundreds more Characters from Games, Movies, and Role Play that I do not know.

I saw no incidents of weapon policy violations, so for all you other HR-types out there, it just goes to show you the value of a good policy.

Let’s be careful out there.

Anna at abdpbt is responsible for the effort to Fight Listless Mondays. Find other list links on her blog. Her lists are more clever. Lots.

• We need the Explorer, who looks for what’s new and different in a situation. Sometimes she finds clues that we didn’t know existed.
• We need the Artist, who can take the information available and the colors, textures and details of a situation and create something new. New ideas, new solutions.
• Without the help of the Judge, we might sometimes head off in wrong directions. We count on this type to see clearly and make decisions that help move us forward.
• Of course the Warrior is critical to just getting things done sometimes.

In some workplaces, we assign one individual the responsibility for improving safety, but it is the rare person who can do it all alone. It takes partnership, teamwork, or whatever you want to call it.

It also take diversity. Remember that diversity is about differences in thought and capabilities as much as anything else.

Are you getting the most out of the diversity of thought available to you? It could make the difference in achieving your best possible safety result.
Thanks, and let’s be careful out there!

The third is The Artist. Someone has to find new ways, apply creativity and find the path that no one has seen before. We work with people of so many backgrounds, and while a promise of reward for a safe week/month/year may appeal to some, others recognize the value of safety as its own reward.

Remember that everything we see around us is a result of someone’s creativity. Someone’s ideas brought to reality. You can be an Artist.

We need to be artists at times. We need to consider the materials at hand and the audience we are trying to reach, and develop ways to communicate a message or an idea that will appeal to the broadest cross-section possible.

Sometimes you just need to spill the paint to see what’s possible.
Are you an Artist? Do you bring your most creative self to problems solving and to the materials at hand?

Let’s be careful out there.

Author Roger von Oech explains how it takes several different types of people to bring real solutions into being and make them last. I read the book and took a look at my new team. I was long on Warriors. These guys got their jobs by being fighters every day. They went out on the shop floor and worked side by side with the operators in problem solving and maintenance tasks. They barked orders and grabbed the reigns and made sure that stuff got done.

The next day they would do it all over again.

The problem with this behavior in leading safety is that you can’t power your way through safety issues. You can’t order people to be more safe, you can’t fight off an accident. If it happens it happens.

Are you a Warrior? Perhaps you are one of the other types. I’ll cover them in the next few Wednesdays and you can tell us all where you fit.

Let’s be careful out there.